More doings. . .

Well, Anne is double digits!  10!!!!  When did she do all that growing up?  And with that question, when did her friends turn into such young ladies?

 

Anne requested a candy cake this year.  We had such a fun time making it, and the kiddos took their "slice" of cake home in their treat bags.

 Anne (and Molly) got matching pajamas from Oma.

 For her 10th birthday we let her host a sleep over.  Looks like they all had fun!



So while the septic has been going in and all that activity, Phil (and the whole family) has been renovating our chicken coop.  The kids and I pulled out the dirty carpet (?) and padding, pulled the covers off the windows, removed the broken glass from the windows, covered the windows with hardware cloth, put down linoleum (we found a roll in the garage), and set up nesting boxes.

Phil worked hard to put up a divider and door in the hen house so that the hens can live in one half and the chicks can be raised in a brooding area in the other half.  He also rigged up a roost and built a completely enclosed chicken run on the outside.  He dug a trench and buried hardware cloth and rock to hopefully keep out digging critters.

 Then he covered half the run with aluminum roofing and added a gutter that will spill into a rain barrel. (We still need to get the rain barrel)

 Didn't he do a great job?  It is so sturdy and well built, our chickens should be happy and most importantly--safe from predators!

And so they arrived yesterday.  A friend had this lovely pair of half banty chickens that she could not keep.  They are almost fully grown and the hen should start laying in September.  We had wanted to get chicks in the fall so they would start laying in the spring, and my friend offered us this pair.  So we have now added Joe and Bernadette to our hobby farm.

 They have these feathers on their feet and so the family that owned them previously called them fluffy feet.

 Their feathers are so pretty, they glow green, blue, teal and purple in the sunlight.  I think Joe is an especially handsome rooster!

 Here they are checking out the new digs.

 

 

 See that little vent window--yea, that is where Bernadette roosted the first night.  Stinker!  We set up this nice roost for her and she jumps up into the vent.  If she continues to do so, we will put a roost up high for her.  However, this morning when the kids checked on them, they were both snuggled on the roost we set up.

Another view of those feathered feet!